DARK AGES AMERICA

This is the Blog for MORRIS BERMAN, the author of "Dark Ages America". It includes current publications and random thoughts about U.S. Foreign Policy, including letters and reactions to publications from others.
A cultural historian and social critic, MORRIS BERMAN is the author of "Wandering God" and "The Twilight of American Culture". Since 2003 he has been a visiting professor in sociology at Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.
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January 10, 2019

353

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore!"
Was Poe predicting the end of the United States? Was he a far-seeing clairvoyant? One has to wonder. Meanwhile, we have Trumpi doing his best to discredit himself and perhaps the country as well. I'm a believer that we get the leaders we deserve, and if he is behaving like a choleric child, so is a good part of the nation. No suaveness, no finesse, no social skills--just acting like a buffoon and throwing tantrums. Which is good, from a declinist point of view: Trumpi was "hired" by history to accelerate our decline and he is clearly doing his job. Rave on, Trumpi; you have 168 Wafers cheering you on. Only 9 days into 2019, and the possibilities for further damage seem endless.
As for the rest of the population, I can't help thinking of those lines from my favorite Christmas carol:"Above thy deep and dreamless sleep/The silent stars go by..."
mb

About Me

Morris Berman is well known as an innovative cultural historian and social critic. He has taught at a number of universities in Europe and North America, and has held visiting endowed chairs at Incarnate Word College (San Antonio), the University of New Mexico, and Weber State University. During 1982-88 he was the Lansdowne Professor in the History of Science at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. Berman won the Governor’s Writers Award for Washington State in 1990, the Rollo May Center Grant for Humanistic Studies in 1992, and the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity (from the Media Ecology Association) in 2013. He is the author of a trilogy on the evolution of human consciousness–-The Reenchantment of the World (1981), Coming to Our Senses (1989), and Wandering God: A Study in Nomadic Spirituality (2000)–and in 2000 his Twilight of American Culture was named a “Notable Book” by the New York Times Book Review. Dr. Berman relocated to Mexico in 2006, and during 2008-9 was a Visiting Professor at the Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico City.